Guess the new name for Arma 3’s main island: Altis

By Michael Jamias

It’s now known as “Altis” and the new name has a very interesting back story.

“The decision follows an incident involving the arrest of two Bohemia Interactive employees, who were spending their holidays on Lemnos. Both were detained for 129 days on suspicion of espionage. They were recently released on bail,” the developer Bohemia Interactive said on a release for the upcoming military simulation MMORPG.

Bohemia Interactive said the main island (approx. 350 km²) for Arma 3 was originally inspired by the beautiful environment of the Greek island, Lemnos (approx. 475 km²), artistically re-created based on commercially and publicly available data.

Lemnos was chosen as the centerpiece of the game after Bohemia Interactive CEO, Marek Spanel, visited the island on vacation several years ago and shared his impressions with the Arma 3 development team.

“However, in view of recent events, the team no longer feels passionate about using the previous name, 'Limnos', and hopes that the new identity, ‘Altis’, will help emphasize the fictional nature of the game. A secondary, significantly smaller island in Arma 3, ‘Stratis’ (approx. 20 km²), will keep its name,” the developer added.

With the name change, Bohemia Interactive hopes to shed any negative associations with the headline-grabbing arrest of the two employees.

"As part of the creative process, our virtual environments are often rooted in real-life locations and, during development, they evolve and grow along with our design. The resulting fictional environment is often close to its inspiration, but it's never exactly the same - nor would we want it to be. For us, 'Altis' echoes the Mediterranean heart of our island, but differentiates it from any undesired real-life connotations,” said Joris-Jan van 't Land, Project Lead for the mmofps scheduled to release sometime in 2013.